


Long Cold Summer

by heartequals (savvygambols)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_50states, Gen, No Quotation Marks, Original Character(s), Teenagers, Tennessee - Freeform, Urban Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-01
Updated: 2007-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-01 21:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvygambols/pseuds/heartequals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean and a couple of weeks in Tennessee during the summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Cold Summer

**Author's Note:**

> submission for : Tennessee
> 
> Other notes: Thank you to for letting me hurl this at her unexpectedly and still liking me at the end of it. The title of this fic is off of "Long Cold Winter" by The Val Papadins.
> 
> Little Nina & all information about her is real, Cleveland Tennessee is real, everything else isn't. Funny story: I got this assignment and about a month later my grandmother rolls into town, claiming she's been all over god's green universe trying to find this book for me and oh, it's just a little book called _Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley_. My grandmother: a psychic?

Dean sits up against a tree and watches. Just watches the light against the marble of the mausoleum, the uncut stalks of green grass that sway against the walls. 

He’s never found cemeteries very peaceful before. But the air is so heavy and thick that he can’t think of anything else to do but sit, and watch. The mausoleum doesn’t reflect the purples and blues of the dying afternoon so much as it absorbs the light into its stone.

Dean’s sheathed knife hangs loose in his hands, forgotten and unused.

 

Why can’t there be ghosts in Las Vegas? he asked John. Why is it always in the middle of fucking nowhere? Middle of fucking nowhere, _in The Deep South._

Tennessee’s not Deep South, said Sam.

Don’t swear, said John.

Seriously, Dad.

He was 18 finally, and finally free from the pressures of school. He wanted to go somewhere where he could be 18, young, and stupid, before he had to get to work properly. Cleveland Tennessee did not inspire images of the young and the stupid, or even the very well air-conditioned. It was hot and humid and it was ten o’clock at night.

You ever seen a demon in the light, John asked. Demons don’t like the light.

That’s stupid, said Sam, 14 years old and full of it, I’ve seen demons in the light.

Have you?

Sam’s brow furrowed and he spent the rest of the day in the library. John winked when he left Dean alone, first time in months. They both listened attentively to Sam’s story, when he re-emerged hours later, of how he went to the library and searched, and searched, and couldn’t find any demons in Las Vegas ever seen in the broad daylight, although, Sam was quick to point out, that didn’t mean sun-loving demons didn’t exist.

He also had the remarkable look of being well-fed and when questioned, admitted that the librarian had given him cookies while he listened to her retell the myriad ghost stories of the town. Anything interesting, asked John and Sam said, yeah, they were good, but he was talking about the cookies.

 

The only things John trusted with his boys anymore were hotel locks and libraries. 

 

John said, I got to meet up with some other hunters tonight. You boys stay in. Stay here. Dean said, come on, I’m 18, I can help, can’t I? I can do something, I don’t have anything to worry about now, come on, please-

You got Sammy to worry about.

Sam raised a hand from the other end of the room. I’m fine. His gangly adolescent limbs were tucked up in a gritty motel armchair and he was reading a comic book and eating cookies. His hair was too long over his face and his shirt was on inside out. Dean looked back at his father and had to concede the point without further argument.

 

There are angry tear streaks forming on the marble walls and eves. Red-orange tears on top of old ones. There’s the faint, very faint, sound of someone crying from within the mausoleum.

The salt and matches are heavy in Dean’s pocket, but his head in the thick air is heavier still. The cicadas drown out the sound of crying and he falls asleep against the tree in the warm afternoon sun.

 

Dean had no patience as a kid, but he had even less now that he was 18 and playing babysitter, and what little patience he had left broke with the air conditioner. He got to his feet when the ancient piece of machinery sputtered and died.

We are getting out of here, he said. He had cabin fever like no one else. A week of evenings in a crappy motel did that.

You’re leaving? Sam looked up from whatever book he was reading.

We’re leaving. Too damn hot. C’mon Sammy. There’s gotta be something to do around here.

Sam opened his mouth to argue but couldn’t be bothered in the heat.

 

Dean met the cookie-bearing librarian one day when he went to fetch his brother so they could get dinner. She was a nice lady, if a little grey around the edges. Her cookies were undeniably delicious.

Sam didn’t tell me he had a brother! She seemed delighted that there might be more Winchesters to ply with cookies and books.

Dean. He stuck his hand out with awkward grace and rusty manners. Hi.

You want something to eat? Or read?

She opened the library up to him like her home. Dean wasn’t even sure he still knew how to read - the minute he’d left school, he’d tried as hard as he could to forget everything he learned that wouldn’t help him kill demons. And that was just about everything he’d ever learned in school.

Do you like ghost stories as much as your brother? He sure does enjoy all our local lore. I’m running out of stories to tell him. You boys ain’t from round here, huh?

No, Dean said, trying very hard not to add a _ma’am_ at the end. Not us, no-

Y’all in town for a vacation?

M’dad’s work, he said, hoping that would be enough explanation, because he certainly didn’t have anything more. John had been characteristically quiet on the details of this case. We don’t know how long we’re gonna be here.

You like Cleveland?

Dean hesitated for too long.

Mmm, said the little grey librarian, pulling a plate of cookies from under the desk, it sure is quiet, isn’t it? Southern Tennessee, we’re like that.

 

It was really only because he found Sam _talking_ to it, and who talks to a demon? That wasn’t natural. It was too weird.

She’s a little girl! protested Sam, after Dean dragged him all the way out the cemetery and back to the hotel. She’s just lonely!

 

The only company Cleveland had to offer were drunk 19 year olds, twin sisters by the name of Victoria and Elizabeth – Vicky and Lizzy – giggling in the town square on the bench outside the closed department store. They watched Sam and Dean only with appraising eyes, not distrusting ones.

We’re bored, said Sam, by way of introduction.

Hi, said Dean, who had, somewhat miraculously, not forgotten his manners. I’m Dean. We’re, uh, we’re just visiting and we’re wondering what there is to do for fun around here.

Vicky handed him a beer bottle. Dean saluted her. Sam looked bored. Is that what we’re going to do?

No, that’s what _I’m_ going to do. You’re too young. Girls, this is Sam. 

He’s so cute.

Sam looked more interested.

 

The librarian had a lot of interesting stories, more interesting then daytime tv at any rate, so Dean started coming with Sam to library and helping her out a little. She couldn’t reach the top shelves and made Dean shelf books while she rambled. George the Headless, she said cheerfully, pulling books from the cart and handing them to Dean. Not a very nice man. He got his head cut off and now they say he goes round and cuts people right along their necks. You should see the scars.

Really?

She nodded. And the man under the tree. He was just a shadow. Didn’t say much though, except when they cut down his tree and he got a bit unpleasant but then the twins planted another tree right in the place of the old one and he stopped giving the head contractor headaches and visions.

People believe in this stuff, he said trying to keep his voice calm. Seriously?

Oh, no. Not much. Just me and the twins and their parents. Their parents are away a lot. Never home. Poor dears, but they’re old enough for college now. 

 

Sam once asked why there were never any other kids at the bars or rest stops where hunters gathered whenever the family had to stop on the road.

Cos no one else is stupid enough to get married and have kids, said Dean.

Cos no one else is lucky enough, said John.

 

When Dean wakes up, he’s fallen, lying in the grass and it’s just after sunset. Sam’s there, Sam’s got his hand pressed against the door of the mausoleum. Don’t cry, he says. Don’t cry. May I come in?

But the sobbing is very loud and Dean’s not sure if the person inside hears Sam.

 

Dean didn’t know how he got to be sitting on the bench with Vicky and Lizzy, or how he got to be sitting with one of them in his lap, but he wasn’t really going to question. Sam sat on the pavement at their feet with a wide grin on his face. The twins, like the little grey librarian, knew a lot of stories. Their parents were hunters, no one Dean and Sam knew, so the four were able to trade stories as the Tennessee summer heat wore into a slightly cooler evening.

Anything around here?

What, you all wanna bust some ghosts? Vicky laughed. Nothing scary, if you’re looking for some cheap thrills.

Lizzy shifted slightly on Dean’s lap. The movement wasn’t lost on him.

What then? said Sam. Does this town have _anything_?

No, said Lizzy, just as Vicky said, yes.

 

Dad, come on! There’s nothing to do here and Sam’s 14, he can-

John silences him with a frown and Dean cuts his pleading in half.

Please?

No. John examines his gun before tucking it under his shirt. Dean, you can’t help with this one. Next time.

 

Little Nina, the little grey librarian rattled on as Dean nearly fell trying to catch a shelf of Warhol books that threatening to tumble over. Little Nina, was another one.

Dean ends up with an armful of books despite his best efforts.

Cute as a button, said the little grey librarian. Tragedy, that one. Killed by a train when she was out riding with her grandfather. Rest of her family wasn’t long for it after. They’re all buried in the same mausoleum, down at the Episcopal church. The big old white mausoleum. Can’t miss it. Bit silly, to build that whole thing for a little girl.

Yeah, said Dean, hating Warhol for all he was worth. Why did the guy have to write so damn much, or whatever it was he did that made these damn oversized books a necessity in public libraries.

Some say she kills her family but I think she’s just lonely.

Dean froze. Any descendants, he asked carefully. Anyone?

Couple. Not many though. Cursed family. You know how it happens, when they die young. Sadness like that, it just gets passed down. It’s a burden for everyone, even the new generation. I heard her parents were such a mess. They buried her in a coffin with a glass top.

That’s, Dean says, trying not to be crude, that’s so gross.

Oh, they covered up her face but then the weeping began. All up and down the mausoleum walls. 

What?

Mm, yes. Dean, she said, peering into his face. You look sick. Have some cookies.

 

Dean crawls to his feet, brushing grass and leaves off his clothes and pushes Sam out of the way, and kicks the door in. There’s a little girl sitting on top of a white marble tomb, sobbing. Her clothes are clean, richly Southern, but her tears are red. The walls of the mausoleum are red, deeper and more extensively stained than the slabs on the outside.

She sees Dean and she screams in terror.

 

There’s this one girl our parents never bothered with, said Vicky. Little Nina.

Sam sat up a little straighter. Yeah?

This kid who died like, way back in the nineteen hundreds, back at the turn of the century. Train wreck or something.

Dean remembers the librarian telling him this. The chick in the mausoleum?

Yeah, said Vicky. You boys want some fun, you walk around her grave seven times and knock on the door. She’ll open the door and you get to see her. Or talk to her. 

She frowns. Or die. Can’t remember. Never done it myself.

 

Dad, what are you doing out there anyway? Can’t you even- you’re not doing anything, are you? You don’t come home with cuts or scars or-

There is more then one kind of scar, Dean, said John but Dean didn’t believe him. He heard his father come home everyday, and his father only ever smelled like he’d been sitting in one of the bars downtown all night.

 

Sam went missing from the library one day when Dean got tricked into learning the Dewey Decimal System. 

You and your brother sure like ghost stories, said the little grey librarian.

It’s sort of a. . .family hobby. Collecting ghost stories.

Except that Dean hated the word hobby and all the normalcy it implied and collecting was a sick euphemism for what he and his brother and father really did.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

Dean liked the old woman. He really did. She believed in ghosts the way one believes in second cousins, or socialites.

No, he lied. Never seen a spirit. Then he looked around. Where’s Sammy?

 

Sammy was down at the cemetery, walking around the mausoleum seven times, to see if what the girls said was true.

 

Dean only knew this because he tore out of the library and down to the Episcopal Church at the bottom of the town, and because he raced around the side of the church and counted the rings Sammy made around the mausoleum.

He also watched as Sammy knocked on the door and began speaking to it.

 

Dad, we found a spirit. Or a demon. Or something.

John looked up sharply from the map he was annotating. What kind?

Vengeful.

That’s not true! burst out Sam. Dean, you’re so. . .she’s not vengeful!

She?

Sam made friends with her.

John squinted. I thought you boys were at the library all day.

We were, but Sam, he-

Dean, shut up, you don’t know _anything_ -

The librarian said all her family dies, even the new generations-

She’s seven years old, Dean! How could she do any of that?

And these girls we met, they said that if you go around her mausoleum seven times and knock on the door, you die.

 _I_ didn’t die! shouted Sam. I did it and _I’m_ still alive.

You don’t do that, Sam.

The teens went quiet under their father’s steady gaze. What?

You don’t mess with superstitions like that. You need to be more careful.

I had my knife, said Sam defensively. I was careful. 

Was Dean with you?

No, he was shelving books at the library-

John looked over at Dean, disbelieving, and decided to address that issue later. You weren’t being careful, Sam.

She’s nice! shouted Sam. Don’t you guys believe in benevolent spirits?

Dean said, no, and John said, only your mother, and then the room grew still and cold.

Just take your brother next time, okay?

 

That night, Dean decided to put her to rest. It was the _benevolent_ thing to do.

 

Vicky and Lizzy weren’t much impressed by his plan. She’s fine how she is, said Vicky. Just leave her alone.

She’s sad already. You say she cries all the time. She could get angry. How would that be, an angry seven year old, exacting vengeance on everyone.

She was just some spoiled brat. She died like a hundred and fifty years ago! Dean, she didn’t know shit, she didn’t even attend school. There was nothing in her life for her to get angry about.

 

Sam asked him one time, why are there so many demons in the world?

Dean had no idea, he was only 14 at the time, so he repeated the only advice he remembered his mother ever giving him.

You can’t die angry, he said, otherwise you can’t sleep properly.

What?

You become a nightmare, that’s all.

 

Dean, don’t hurt her!

Sam, she-

Nina has her hands over her head. Who are you? she whimpers. Sammy, who is he?

My stupid big brother.

Nina frowns at him. Dean finds himself unsettled. Sam, we’ve got to move. The preacher could find us out here anytime.

Good, says Sam. I hope he does.

Whatever glass coffin there might have been is now covered in a marble tomb that Nina is sitting on.

Go ahead, says Sam. Go move the stupid tomb. See her body. 

What’s he going to do, Sammy?

Nothing.

Well, yeah, Dean can’t do a damn thing with the ghost watching him and his brother standing there with his arms crossed.

Sam- 

I’m not going to help you.

Dean decides to ignore him and addresses the ghost. Are you lonely?

Nina wrings her fists in her skirt and kicks her heels against her tomb. She doesn’t answer Dean, just bites her bottom lip.

Come on, why are you always crying?

Nina’s lower lip juts out. I never got to go to school, she says finally.

It isn’t that great, seriously. I just graduated, it’s not that great.

Dean, shut up! Sam kicks at his brother. You don’t get it.

Nina puts her head in her hands and the walls bleed further red tears. The whole place coated in orange red - the only part of the mausoleum untouched by her tears is her tomb.

I just wanted to, is all. I just did. I don’t know anything at all.

You know more then Dean, says Sam, overflowing with sincerity. Maybe he’s older but he’s an idiot.

You here all the time? Dean asks Nina. Just in here crying?

No. I don’t like to stay here, it’s so cold.

It’s warmer in the mausoleum then their hotel room with its broken air conditioner and cemented windows. Death must be very cold.

Ever go outside?

Sometimes children come to the cemetery, Nina says. I like to play with them. She bites her lip again. I like to watch.

They come at night?

No, says Nina. You _are_ stupid. They come in the day. They all have to go to sleep in the night.

I told you! shouts Sam, despite himself. I told you they came out in the day, I told you, I told you! He grins at Nina. You see the sunlight!

Don’t you see it too? She seems very puzzled by them. Dean puts his hand in his pocket and touches the salt there.

 

We’re leaving, says John that night, when they both stumble in, exhausted and angry with each other. Tomorrow afternoon. Pack your things.

Good, says Sam. I don’t like this place anymore.

It’s not so bad, says Dean.

 

Dean comes back in the broad light of the morning, kicks open the closed door like he’s seen his dad do so many times. It takes a great effort but he manages to shove the top of the sarcophagus off as well, sends it crashing to the floor. It stays intact. Little Nina’s little skeleton lies underneath a glass coffin top, just like the little grey librarian said. He smashes it open with the butt of his knife and throws salt over the body.

Nina says, what are you doing? Where’s Sam?

She’s standing in the corner, her hands behind her back, bouncing slightly.

You miss your family?

The corner of her mouth twitches. An orange-red droplet forms on the wall. Yes. I guess.

Dean says, good bye, Nina.

He lights a match and watches the coffin light up. Maybe the flames will burn all those tears off the inside of the mausoleum.

 

The little grey librarian hands Sam a book and Dean a plate of cookies. You’re nice boys. I’ll miss you. What do you do with all your collected ghost stories? You never told me any stories. I sure hope mine were good.

Um, says Dean. Um.

We’re going to write a book, says Sam. A fire truck screams in the distance, on its way down to the bottom of the town. He frowns at the sound and bites his lip, an endearingly childish gesture for him. He glances at Dean. Dean can’t even fake a smile.

Sam says, We’ll dedicate it to you. Your stories were the best.

The little grey librarian smiles. You stay in touch, you hear? And you stay in school. You’re smart boys. Going to write a book of ghost stories. She laughs. Gonna do a whole lot more, I reckon.

Dean never actually learned her name.


End file.
